Northern shrimp have a wide range throughout the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans, thriving in colder water temperatures between 2 to 6 degrees C. They are found mainly on soft and muddy bottoms. In the Atlantic Ocean, they occur from the Davis Strait south to the Gulf of Maine; in the eastern Pacific, they range from the Aleutian Islands to Oregon and in the west, from Siberia down to Japan. In Canada, the main fisheries are off the east coast of Nova Scotia, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in Davis Strait and off the coasts of Labrador and northeastern Newfoundland.

Northern shrimp are crustaceans with a hard exoskeleton. Their colour ranges from a light to a reddish-pink. They have a muscular body with four feeding legs and six walking legs, and a tail with attached pleopods (fins) that enables them to swim and escape danger quickly. Northern shrimp can grow to a length of about 15 centimetres, though they average about half this, and they are known to live for more than eight years in some areas.